Her body then started transforming from a jade beauty into a handsome young man. As the nine-tailed fox, illusion was one of her specialties.
Meanwhile, Quartz and the group found themselves inside a beautiful palace. The whole building looked like it was made of sand, but it was intricately carved, and the sand had a unique quality to it. It gave off a feeling like someone was looking at a starry sky.
"You built all this, Ariadne?" Quartz asked while looking at it with amazement. With how big the hallway was, two Dragari dragons in their dragon forms could walk side by side and still have space to spare.
"Of course not, this is my spoil. I took it over from the first emperor of the beast region, or as they call this land, Grimwild."
"What a weird name. But the first emperor—does this mean you're the strongest one here?"
Ariadne let out a chuckle, "I wish. In total, there are nine emperors ruling over Grimwild. Each has their own territory, and they rarely interact with each other.
Going to another area also requires many permissions. Well, you can think of it as a passport, but one that's really hard to get."
"Isn't that just a visa? Well, we're all hunters, so it's easy for us, but I know many people complain about how hard it is to travel between countries now," Olivia added.
"Oh yeah, it's called a visa. Anyway, this place is good once you start adapting to it."
"Living around beast-men?"
"Yes, you may find some of their culture barbaric, but when you get used to it, you'll find how refreshing it is.
There's no bullshit like politics here. Strength is above everything. You don't need to care what they say behind your back, and it's not like they do that.
People here frown upon those kinds of things. If you want something, become strong; everything is just so simple."
Seeing how respected Ariadne was, they believed what she said was the truth. She genuinely loved living here. No one even asked why a human was with their empress.
Quartz could feel their curious gazes, but no one asked or made trouble for them.
"And about the emperor. The first doesn't mean the strongest here; instead, it's the weakest."
"So the strongest one is number nine? How strong was the one you beat?"
"It was a tanuki. He had control over sand, but strategy-wise, he was dumb. Honestly, I shouldn't have been able to beat him, but he was too full of himself, which allowed me to stack deadly poison."
"That must have been a close win, then. Won't the other beast-men try to challenge your seat?"
"Oh, they did, but they gave me time to recover first."
"I never thought beast-men would be that considerate," Quartz said.
"It's not a consideration for me, but for after they win. No one would respect them if they did that, and I bet they'd get a never-ending queue of challengers."
They then entered a room with a table and a few comfortable couches. Based on the decoration and appearance, it was clear the room was designed to receive guests.
"Ariadne, enough with the background. Can you tell me more about your power? Last time we met, you could barely control it."
Ariadne's eyes turned complicated, and she then let out a deep sigh. If only she had control over her power, she knew she would be more useful to Edward and the others.
"As you know, my ability allows me to mimic monster abilities and appearances. It's strong but comes with a huge drawback—I couldn't control it."
"Yes, after you mimicked more than ten, the abilities started coming out at random, some even mixing with another, resulting in catastrophic combinations that rendered you useless in battle."
"Useless is a good result. Sometimes, it became a burden for others. I still remember turning into a fish in the middle of a fight, ending up almost dead because I couldn't breathe without water."
Seraphine wanted to laugh upon hearing it, but seeing Quartz and Olivia's expressions, she held back her laughter. The event seemed to have almost caused them some tragedy.
"So how do you control it now? By using your eyes?"
"Cultivation. Have you heard of it?"
"Like the one in the novel?"
"Similar but with some differences."
Ariadne then started telling Seraphine how it worked and how Edward helped her modify it. At first, her cultivation followed the same sequence, but after the golden core, it started to change.
She would take the monster characteristics she copied and then create a core of it. But this came with a downside: to perfect the core, she needed to absorb the monster's essence.
At first, she did it in the most direct way by cooking and eating them, but after she broke through to a new realm, she learned how to absorb only the monster's essence.
If the creature was a spirit beast, she would just need to absorb their monster core.
The next problem arose when she tried to change cores to use. It took her some time to do this, not long—barely a minute—but in a fight, that could easily become deadly.
To mitigate this, she then modified her own eyes as Ariadne made another breakthrough. Right now, she was in the early stage of the Transcendent realm.
"I heard Alex explain the Transcendent stage can control space, time, and reality. Is this true?" Quartz asked.
"Well, it's not wrong, but also not that far-fetched. Our control over them is more about allowing us to use our abilities instantly without any preparation, just like how I captured you before.
If you want to ask me how it works, then I'd suggest looking for Edward. I suck at those theories. I can just show you instead."
Ariadne disappeared from where she stood and then suddenly appeared behind Quartz, catching her off guard.
She was sure it wasn't just fast movement.
"Did you just teleport?"